ACROSS: Automated zero-touch cross-layer provisioning framework for 5G and beyond vertical services

ACROSS is a secure, end-to-end network and service management platform that aims to address the dynamic and complex requirements of modern and future services in a cloud processing environment. It provides a highly scalable service orchestration layer, managed by a multi-domain cloud-native service orchestrator, to manage multi-faceted infrastructures across geographically distributed edge-to-core deployments. It increases security and trust over underlying devices and data sources while jointly exploiting data, programmability, and AI to improve performance and outsmart existing service orchestration. It employs zero-touch mechanisms for multi-objective service management optimizations and fosters a democratized cloud ecosystem for multiple stakeholders. It is built on principles such as event and data-driven microservices, open and standardized APIs, and true unsupervised real-time automation using AI. It aims to be the first of a new breed of AI-driven zero-touch service deployment and management platforms and has a concrete roadmap for proof-of-concept demonstrations to selected standards.